and fair; for, in my own way, I could live for my friends.’ * *
‘Dec. 8th, 1840. — My book of amusement has been
the Evenings of St. Petersburg. I do not find the
praises bestowed on it at all exaggerated. Yet De
Maistre is too logical for me. I only catch a thought
here and there along the page. There is a grandeur
even in the subtlety of his mind. He walks with a step
so still, that, but for his dignity, it would be stealthy,
yet with brow erect and wide, eye grave and deep. He
is a man such as I have never known before.’ * *
‘I went to see Mrs. Wood in the Somnambula. Nothing
could spoil this opera, which expresses an ecstasy, a
trance of feeling, better than anything I ever heard, I
have loved every melody in it for years, and it was
happiness to listen to the exquisite modulations as they
flowed out of one another, endless ripples on a river
deep, wide and strewed with blossoms. I never have
known any one more to be loved than Bellini. No
wonder the Italians make pilgrimages to his grave. In
him thought and feeling flow always in one tide; he
never divides himself. He is as melancholy as he is
sweet; yet his melancholy is not impassioned, but purely
tender.’
‘Dec. 15, 1840. — I have not time to write out as I
should this sweet story of Melissa, but here is the
outline: —
‘More than four years ago she received an injury, which caused her great pain in the spine, and went to the next country town to get medical advice. She stopped at the house of a poor blacksmith, an acquaint-
